the similitude which existed between the Indian and Hebrew moral laws. The 10th is the knowledge which the Mexican and Peruvian traditions supplied, that the Indians possessed the history contained in the Pentateuch. The 11th is the Mexican tradition of the Teo-moxtli, or Divine Book of the Toltics. 12th. Is the famous migration from Azltan, or (Asia). 13th. The traces of Jewish history, traditions, laws, customs, manners, which are found in the Mexican paintings. 14th. The frequency of sacrifice amongst the Indians, and the religious consecration of the blood and fat of the victims. 15th. The style of the architecture of their Temples. 16th. The fringes which the Mexicans wore fastened to their garments. 17th. A similarity of the manners and customs of the Indian tribes far removed from the central monarchies of Mexico and Peru, to those of the Jews, which writers who were not Spaniards, have noticed, such as Sir William Penn,' &c." pp. 115, 116.

1 "Their eyes are black like the Jews-they reckon by moons-they offer the first-fruits-they have a feast of Tabernacles-their altar stands on twelve stones -their mourning lasts a year. Their customs of women are like those of the Jews, their language is concise, masculine, full of energy, resembling the Hebrew; one word serves for three, and the rest is supplied by the understanding of the hearers. Lastly, they were to go into a country which was neither planted nor sown; and he that imposed that condition upon them, was well able to level their passage thither, for we may go from the Eastern extremity of it, to the West of America.-Penn's Letter on the present state of the lands in America," p. 156.

27

MIGRATION.

'AMERICA had been discovered nearly two hundred years before reflecting minds had begun to inquire into the peculiarities of its first inhabitants, and as they, instead of collecting evidence from corresponding facts, gave at once their own speculations as the end of inquiry, we have only a mass of contradictory theories. To their amazement they discovered no negroes, although every temperature of other parts of the globe are to be found in America, and although the powerful operation of heat produces a striking variety in the human race. The colour of the natives of the Torrid Zone in America is slightly darker than that of the people of the more temperate parts of the continent. Accurate observers who have viewed the Aborigines in very different climates, and provinces far removed from each other, have been struck with the amazing similarity of their figure and aspect. Pedro de Cicca de Leon, who had an extensive acquaintance with the tribes, observes, 'The people, men and women, although they are such a vast multitude of tribes or nations, in such diverse climates, appear nevertheless like the children of one family?'

The Abbe Clavegero says of the (Aztecs or) MexicansThey were the last people who settled in Anahuic-they formerly dwelt in Aztlan, a country north of the gulph

of California; judging by the rout of their emigration, according to Boturini, a province of Asia.'1

Montezuma evidently refers to the remote tradition of their landing when he informed Cortez that they had arrived on the continent with a mighty lord. 'We have,' said he, 'ruled these tribes only as viceroys of Quetzalcoatl our God and lawful Sovereign.'

The Abbe Clavegero observes-Their ancestors came into Anahuic from the countries of the north and north west.' This tradition is confirmed by the many ancient edifices built by these people in their migration.' Torquemeda and Betancourt mention having seen these most ancient edifices.'

Boturini says "that in the ancient paintings of the Toltics were represented the migration of their ancestors through Asia, and the northern countries of America, until they settled in the country of Tullan, and even endeavours in his General history to ascertain the rout they pursued in their journey." The countries in which the ancestors of those nations established themselves being where the most westerly coast of America approaches the most easterly part of Asia, it is probable that they passed either in canoes or on ice, if the continents were then not united by land. The traces which these nations have left lead us to that very strait. This latter is the opinion of Acosta, Grotius, Buffon, and others. We have examples of the same kind of revolutions in the past century. Sicily was united to the continent of Naples as Eubia, now to the Black Sea, and to

2

1 In the ancient paintings of this migration, Torquemeda says, "" There is an arm of the sea represented which I believe to represent the deluge!! Accordingly we find its fac simile in the migration, in the work of Clavegero, bearing the title of "The Deluge."

2 Clavegero says, the conclusion (viz. that the ancestors passed from the most eastern parts of Asia to the most westerly of America) is founded on the constant and general tradition of those tribes, &c.

Boeotia. Diodorus, Strabo, and other ancient writers say the same thing of Spain and Africa, and affirm that by a violent irruption of the ocean upon the land between the mountains Abyla and Calpe, that communication was broken and the Mediterranean Sea was formed. The people of Ceylon had such a tradition that an irruption of the sea separated their island from the peninsula of India.’

'It is certain,' says the Count de Buffon,1 that in Ceylon the earth has lost forty leagues which the sea has taken from it.' Pliny, Seneca, Diodorus, and Strabo, report innumerable instances of similar revolutions, which are related in the theory of the earth of the Count de Buffon. We suppose that the sinking of the land at Kamschatka has been occasioned by those great and extraordinary earthquakes mentioned in the records of the Americans which formed an era almost as remarkable as that of the deluge. Clavegero continues the Bishop of Mexico issued an edict to commit all records of their ancient history to the flames. The successors of the first monks regretted this fanatical zeal, as nothing remained of the history of the Empire but tradition, and some fragments of their paintings which had escaped the barbarous research of Zumeraga. There, in a square of the market, a mass like a little mountain was reduced to ashes, to the inexpressible affliction of the Indians. From this time forward, they who possessed any were so jealous, that it was impossible for the Spaniards to make them part with one of them.' vol. i. p. 407. 'Cav. Boturini upon the faith of the ancient history of the Toltics says, that observing in their own country, Hue

1 Buffon accounts for the introduction of the various animals into the new continent in the same manner. For opinions of various writers, see Appendix. 2 Baron Humboldt observes" it is remarkable enough, that a Franciscan monk, Torquemeda, should have branded as a barbarian, Bishop Zumeraga, too notorious for the destruction of the History of the Aztecs.'

1

huetlapallan, how the solar year exceeded the civil one, by which they reckoned about six hours, they regulated it by interposing the intercalary day once in the four years; which they did more than one hundred years before the Christian era.' He says that in the year 660 under the reign of Ixlalalcuechahuatli, in Tula, a celebrated astronomer, called Huematzin, assembled by the king's consent, all the wise men of the nation; and with them painted that celebrated book called TEоmoxtli, or "Divine Book," in which were represented in very plain figures, the origin of the Indians, their dispersion after the confusion of tongues, their subsequent journeying in Asia, their first settlements upon the Continent of America, the founding of the kingdom of Tula, and their progress till that time.

Robertson in his History observes, "The possibility of a communication between the two continents in this quarter rests no longer upon mere conjecture, but is established by undoubted evidence. The distance between the Marion or Ladrone islands and the nearest land in Asia is greater than that between the part of America, which the Russians discovered, and the coast of Kamschatka, and yet the inhabitants of these islands are manifestly of Asiatic extract. If notwithstanding their remote situation we admit that the Marion islands were peopled from the continent, distance alone is no reason why we should hesitate in admitting that the Aborigines of America may derive their original from the same It is probable that navigators may in steering further to the north, find that the continents are still nearer. According to the information of the barbarous people who inhabit the country about the north east promontary of Asia, there lies off the coast a small island to which they can sail

source.

1 The repetition of Hue is to signify the ancient place, Hue-Tlapallan having been named after it in the New Continent.